Today's primary goal is to explore White Sands National Monument just outside Alamogordo. Since the best time to take pictures is early morning or late afternoon, I'm at the Monument's visitor center at 8 am. After viewing the short film that provides some background information about this unique desert, I'm heading for the dunes field.

After leaving the park, the unpleasant part of the day begins as I have to do some housekeeping. Then, when laundry and grocery shopping are done, I visit the International Space Center in Alamogordo. The museum has quite an interesting exhibit about the history of space exploration.

Finally, I head back to White Sands National Monument to capture the sand dunes in different light. And while I'm there, I decide to wait for sunset. Watching that while sitting on a dune, surrounded by nothing but other dunes, is an experience that no visitor should miss.

Alamogordo	Population	30,000
	Elevation	4,330 ft (1,320 m)
	Links	City of Alamogordo official home page List of movies filmed in Alamogrodo

Alamogordo is located in the Tularosa Basin, surrounded by the majestic Sacramento, San Andres and Organ mountains. The town is also home to the F-117 Stealth Fighter Wing, the German Air Force in the U.S., as well as nearby white Sands Missile Range.

Route

Alamogordo NM - Lincoln NM - Roswell NM Travel distance 158 miles Map Departing from Alamogordo, NM 8:00 am Arriving at Roswell, NM 1:00 pm Travel time 5:00 hrs

Today's first stop takes me right to the heart of an important piece of Old West history. In Lincoln, where famous Billy The Kid was involved in the Lincoln County War, the sites where it all took place can still be visited today. So I spend quite some time walking up and down Lincoln's Main Street and visiting these historic buildings and sites.

After exploring this historic town, I'm back on the road, heading for Roswell. This is the place where in 1947 a flying object crashed on the Foster Ranch. Shortly after the crash, the U S Airforce proclaimed that an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) from outer space came down. A few days later, however, the Airforce claimed that this was just a misunderstanding and that what actually crashed was an ordinary Airforce weather baloon.

To learn more about this subject, I visited the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which actually is the reason why I went to Roswell in the first place. The museum's exhibit is very interesting, and I even met MicroMike, the guy who claims that what he has under his microscope is an actual meteorite from Mars. To learn more about the museum, click here. During my visit, I also learned that the next day, the museum was going to host a lecture from Donald R. Schmitt, former director of Special Investigations of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO studies. Center for UFO studies. The subject of the lecture would be 1947 Forth Worth Press conference. This sounded quite interesting, so I decided to extend my visit to Roswell for another day so I could attend this lecture. Learn more about it reading tomorrow's entry of this travel log.

International UFO Museum and Research Center

Lincoln	Links	Summary of Lincoln's history Lincoln County War Billy the Kid's biography Billy the Kid - Desert USA List of movies filmed in Lincoln County
	My pictures	Picture gallery of Lincoln

This historic village was settled in 1849 by Hispanic villagers from the east side of the Manzano Mountains. In 1869, with the formation of the county named in honor of President Lincoln, the Territorial Legislature changed the name of the town to Lincoln. Many buildings have been restored, and the town has been purposely kept much the same as it was in the late 1800's.

The Lincoln County War was the last great shootout of the Old West. It arose from a conflict between two rival mercantile operations. After Maj. Lawrence G. Murphy mustered out of the army, he opened a store and saloon in Lincoln, later taking in two partners, James J. Dolan and John H. Riley. They soon gained political and economic control of the county. Then lawyer Alexander McSween arrived in Lincoln. He bought an interest in a ranch, opened a bank. He and partners John Chisum and John Henry Tunstall built a store to challenge Murphy's trade monopoly. On February 18, 1878. Tunstall was murdered by a group of gunman hired by the Murphy forces. McSween supporters, including Billy the Kid, vowed to avenge his death. On July 14, the Five-Day Battle began. McSween was killed and his home burned to the ground.

His widow, Susan, went on to become the Cattle Queen of New Mexico. She married a man named Barber, died in 1931 and is buried in the cemetery at White Oaks (with McSween misspelled on her headstone.) Most Lincoln County War survivors were pardoned by Governor Lew Wallace, also author of the epic novel, Ben Hur. Wallace promised Billy a pardon, but it never came. Billy went on to become an outlaw and a legend.

The Lincoln County Courthouse, where Billy the Kid was jailed, was once the Murphy-Dolan store. Billy escaped on April 25, 1881, killing two deputies. Just three months later, in Ft. Sumner, NM, Billy was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett. He is buried in Ft. Sumner.

The Lincoln County War is also the topic of the 1988 movie Young guns. Even though the screenplay probably changes some historical facts (it's not a documentary), the movie gives a pretty good idea of what happened back in 1878

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Lincoln county court house, famous for Billy The Kid's escape three months prior to his death.

Route

Roswell NM - Fort Sumner NM - Roswell NM Travel distance 182 miles Map Departing from Roswell, NM 8:10 am Arriving at Fort Sumner, NM 9:50 am Back in Roswell, NM 1:30 pm Total travel time 5:20 hrs

Today, at 7 pm, the lecture at the International UFO Museum and Research Center was going to take place. Since, apart from the UFO museum, there's not much to do in Roswell, I decided to travel to Fort Sumner where Billy the Kid was killed and where his grave can be visited.

Next to Billy The Kid's grave, there's a small museum where you the visitor learns a lot about Billy's life and times. While there's a USD 3.18 admission fee to the museum, access to the actual graveyard is, of course, free.

Near the graveryard, Fort Sumner State Monument is located. Since the fort had been destroyed by a flood that also washed away Maxwell house where Billy the Kid was killed, there's not mucht to see at the State Monument.

Back in Roswell, I went to the UFO museum in time to attend Don Schmitt's lecture. The audience was bigger than I expected, and while some guests obiousely were the kind of people who attend any event as long as it's free, most of them really were interested in the subject and some of them had some impressive background knowledge about the 1947 incident.

Then, Don Schmitt started the lecture, titled The 1947 Fort Worth press conference. The goal of his speech was to prove that the objects presented at this press conference are not part of what crashed on July 4 at the Foster Ranch. He described in detail how military personnel witnessed activities that probably resulted in the replacement of actual debris by a deliberately wrecked weather ballon. He also pointed out that the object presented at the press conference and on many photographs actually is nothing but a weather balloon - it's just not what Mac Brazel found on his Ranch on July 5, 1947, the day after he heard that loud noise when something crashed.

Don Schmitt had spoken to various eye witnesses and is therefore able to provide very detailed information about what happened back then. He also wrote a number of books, including UFO crash at Roswell which became the basis for the Showtime TV movie Roswell.

International UFO Museum and Research Center

Fort Sumner	Population	1,300
	Elevation	4,030 ft (1,228 m)
	Links	De Baca County Chamber of Commerce
	My pictures	Picture gallery of Fort Sumner

Located on U. S. Highway 60 halfway between Albuquerque and Lubbock, Texas, 160 miles each way, old Fort Sumner was built in 1862. General James H. Carleton built the fort seven miles southeast of the present town at the Bosque Redondo (round wood or grove) as an Indian reservation for the Navajos and Apaches. These Native Americans were forced to leave their homes and walk 400 miles to the Fort, an episode in our history known as the Long Walk. The post was named for General Edwin Vose Sumner who died as the new fort was being built. It is now a state monument, one of five in New Mexico.

This site was abandoned in 1868 and the old buildings and some of the land were sold to Lucian B. Maxwell. With the coming of the railroad in 1905 - 1907 the town moved north and merged with the settlement of Sunnyside, marking the beginning of the modern Fort Sumner.

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